The Ten Gods (十神) are the part of BaZi that most English sources explain badly. They are not deities and they are not a moral ranking. They are simply the ten possible relationships between your Day Master and any other stem in the chart.
How the ten arise
Take your Day Master. Any other stem either matches its element, generates it, is generated by it, controls it, or is controlled by it. That is five relations. Split each by yin or yang and you have ten.
| Relation | Yang name | Yin name |
|---|---|---|
| Same element | Friend (Bi Jian) | Rob Wealth (Jie Cai) |
| Day Master generates it | Eating God (Shi Shen) | Hurting Officer (Shang Guan) |
| It generates Day Master | Indirect Resource (Pian Yin) | Direct Resource (Zheng Yin) |
| Day Master controls it | Indirect Wealth (Pian Cai) | Direct Wealth (Zheng Cai) |
| It controls Day Master | Seven Killings (Qi Sha) | Direct Officer (Zheng Guan) |
Why the same god reads differently
A god's meaning depends on where it sits. Direct Wealth in the Month pillar points toward career capacity; the same god in the Hour pillar points toward later-life resources. Context does most of the interpretive work, which is why a chart cannot be read by counting gods.
It also depends on whether the Day Master can use it. A weak chart with an abundance of Wealth is not rich — it is overextended.
The same system in Liu Yao
If you know Liu Yao, you already know this: the Six Relatives are the same five relations, measured against the palace element instead of the Day Master. Learning one makes the other much faster to pick up.
What the Ten Gods are used for
- Describing character and temperament in traditional terms.
- Identifying which themes are active during a given luck pillar.
- Checking whether a year is likely to be demanding or easy.
What to be sceptical of
Any source that tells you a single god is "good" or "bad" in isolation has lost the plot. Officer is career pressure and illness; Rob Wealth is loss and charisma. The meaning is the relation, not the label.
Why they are not a moral ranking
The names sound like offices in a bureaucracy, which invites the assumption that some are promotions and others demotions. They are not. Each describes a relation, and each has conditions under which it is favourable and conditions under which it is not.
Officer is career pressure and illness. Rob Wealth is loss and charisma. Reading them as good or bad in isolation loses the thing they were built to express.